One challenge of the History of Place project has been thinking about how to engage all five senses in storytelling. Creative workshops at the Royal School for the Blind, Liverpool explored how to transport listeners’ imaginations to tunnels and 18th century cargo ships using sound and smell.

During the 18th century common diseases like small-pox, measles and whooping cough were all causes of blindness, as well as ‘Egyptian ophthalmia’ which hospitalised whole regiments of English and French troops.